Fire inhibiting structures, in particular fire inhibiting carpets which can be laid over existing conventional oil retaining structures are know. These fire resistant carpets and other fire resistant materials are often made of ceramic fiber materials or woven materials which can withstand high temperature. The materials are often combined with metals which have good heat conducting properties.
A disadvantage concerning materials which contains metals, is that they have a tendency to oxidize/corrode when sea water is present, and their structure changes and weakens when heated.
There are exit barriers which contain both solid and air filled flexible emergency buoy-ancies. Fire restraining barriers containing solid emergency buoyancies can not be coiled in or payed out from a reel. This makes handling difficult and demands a lot of extra work, which constitutes a danger for the barriers. Barriers with flexible floating chambers have little freeboard and spare buoyancy, and therefore there is a chance that they might go down under water during normal tug speed.
The barriers available today are expensive and heavy, and are made up of materials with limited life during a fire, where temperatures in the fire may vary between 800-1300.degree. C. The fire barriers generally have a low buoyancy/weight ratio compared to normal barriers. This causes them to float heavily in the sea, and have poor wave following properties, ans this creates weather-dependent use in open waters. In addition the materials are rigid, and not very flexible, which results in a worsening of the sea-properties.